I was quite stunned to read Parade magazine yesterday.
In it, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is quoted saying that American workers
not only have bad attitudes and lousy work ethics, they also need to dress
better and to have better personal hygiene. Let's be blunt -- Chao thinks
American workers have bad body odor. On top of all that, Chao thinks that
Americans need to take anger management classes!

After reading the article several times in stunned disbelief,
I decided to call Parade magazine and ask where the source of those quotes
came from. I talked to the contact person for the press release who told
me that the author of the story, Lyric Wallwork Winik, interviewed Chao.
She didn't know for sure how the interview was conducted but most of Winik's
interviews are done in person or via telephone.

She was quite interested, and somewhat surprised, when
I told her that that this article is starting to get a lot of notice in
internet blogs and chat rooms. The Parade website allows comments if you
wish to express your opinion about Chao's negative attitude towards American
workers.

Make no mistake about Elaine Chao's motivation for making
these racist and offensive comments. Her purpose is quite transparent
-- she wants to denigrate American workers in order to justify the importation
of foreign workers by using guest worker visas such as H-1B, L-1, H-2B,
TN, etc. The jobs she doesn't destroy here in the U.S. she wants to offshore.

These negative attitudes towards American labor shouldn't
be tolerated, but it does seem fashionable nowadays. Corporate toadies
like Chao are manipulating our sense of self esteem and value to instill
an inferiority complex in us so that we will accept the destruction of
the American middle class.

Elaine Chao shouldn't be allowed to hold a public position,
especially one like the Secretary of Labor, but as we all know her anti-American
attitudes are shared by her boss, President Bush. Why aren't Americans
marching down the street demanding the immediate dismissal of public enemies
like Chao?

You could lose your job to a foreign worker -- not because
he's cheaper but because he has better workplace skills and discipline.
That's the message Labor Secretary Elaine Chao hears from U.S. executives
who are worried about America's competitive future. While losses are low
thus far -- one study estimates that only 280,000 jobs in the service
industry out of 115 million are outsourced each year -- that could change.
Beyond the cheaper cost of labor, U.S. employers say that many workers
abroad simply have a better attitude toward work. "American employees
must be punctual, dress appropriately and have good personal hygiene,"
says Chao. "They need anger-management and conflict-resolution skills,
and they have to be able to accept direction. Too many young people bristle
when a supervisor asks them to do something."

As for our job future, Chao notes that most of the fastest-growing
jobs today are in industries requiring advanced knowledge and skills and
are "very high or high wage." But critics say we're not doing
enough for those without a higher education. "Today, only 30% of the
workforce has four years of college," says Jared Bernstein of the
Economic Policy Institute. "Instead of factory slots, there are slots
for security guards and food-prep workers."

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http://www.parade.com/bio_editorial.html

LYRIC WALLWORK WINIK

"INTELLIGENCE REPORT" COLUMNIST

Every Sunday, PARADE readers turn to Lyric Wallwork Winik's
Special Intelligence Report column for domestic and international news
that affect their lives. Winik is one of America's most respected young
journalists. She has written nearly 25 cover stories for PARADE and has
interviewed such prominent movers and shakers as Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, First Lady Laura Bush, former Secretary of Defense William
S. Cohen, former Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former New York
City mayor Rudy Giuliani and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Winik's work has appeared in The New York Times, the
Washingtonian magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine, Moment
and she is a regular contributor to Forbes FYI. In 2000, she received
the Simon Rockower Prize for Excellence in Feature Writing from the American
Jewish Press Association and was a finalist for the prestigious Livingston
Awards, given to the best young journalist under 35. Winik is the author
of Run East: Flight From the Holocaust, which was nominated for the National
Jewish Book Awards, and is at work on a second book.

A magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University and
elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Winik was the class poet for the 1988 graduating
class at Princeton. She also holds a master's degree in American history
from Johns Hopkins. She is married to Jay Winik, the historian and New
York Times best- selling author of April 1865: The Month That Saved America.